NPP remains the most abusive on radio – Prof Karikari

Affiliates and supporters of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) were on Thursday tagged "the most abusive on radio" by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).

A statement signed by Professor Kwame Karikari, MFWA Executive Director, to the Ghana News Agency explained that for eight consecutive weeks (August 19 – October 13), individuals belonging to the NPP have been at the forefront in the use of indecent remarks on radio.

“This is unacceptable and it is unfortunate that the leadership of the NPP does not seem to be making efforts to reverse this unhealthy phenomenon in our political discourse”, Prof Karikari stated.

He said during the monitored period (October 7 – 13, 2012), a total of 17 indecent expressions were recorded. Affiliates of the NPP made 13 representing 76.5 per cent.

Four individuals made more than one indecent remark and they are all affiliates of the NPP.

The only newspaper editor who has been cited severally for using indecent expressions on radio, Mr. Ken Kuranchie, the Managing Editor of the Daily Searchlight newspaper, who is also an NPP sympathiser, was once again found to have used an indecorous expression.

According to the MFWA, a Kumasi-based Angel FM was the radio station on which a lot of the indecent remarks were made. Ten out of the 17 indecent expressions were made on Angel FM.

Statistics indicates that 17 indecent expressions were made by affiliates of the two main political parties in the country; the NPP and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Thirteen of the 17 inappropriate remarks were made by affiliates of the NPP, and the remaining four indecorous expressions were made by affiliates of the NDC.

            Expressions Used by Political party Affiliation

Expressions Used	Political Party Affiliation
	NPP	NDC	Total
Insulting/Offensive Comments	7	3	10
Unsubstantiated Allegations	5	0	5
Innuendoes	1	1	2
Total	13	4	17

Monitoring campaign language-use on radio is a project by the MFWA with funding from STAR-Ghana. The project is aimed at contributing to ensuring issues-based and decent language campaigning in the December polls.

It involves daily monitoring of language/ expressions by politicians and activists on specific programmes on 31 selected radio stations across the country.